Addiction and dissociation in AGP courtesy of twitter

[Tyrotoxicity]

I can't find a thread about this, but Tinsel just offered up this link on the Transwidows thread.

I was expecting to agree with the general thrust; I was surprised by the growing full-body horror-lurch I experienced while reading it.

The gist is: there's very valuable insight to be gained from analysing AGP through the lens of dissociation and addiction, which I thought would probably be of interest.

But if anyone wants to keep a tighter focus on the female experience - I've long suspected I'd have gone the ROGD route if I were a teenager, but it's often hard to adequately capture the reasons why, in words that resonate with people who've not had the misfortune to collect all these trauma-issues.

And I've just applied the lens used in this twitter thread to my own experience of being female and traumatised, and I've got a strong gut feeling that the latter part of the link (discussing how giving in to AGP demands doesn't help AGPs) is also very much applicable to the 'traumatised' aspect of the typical ROGD profile. But I'm still in the mulling-it-over and not-confident-putting-my-thoughts-into-words stage at the moment.

Would welcome others' thoughts and impressions.

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1171239053867569152.html

Tyro

Coping mechanisms can easily become unhealthy. Ultimately coping mechanisms should be temporary and situational. If they are becoming all consuming the reason(s) for the coping mechanism should be dealt with with therapy. I’ve had a varied selection over the years but am fortunate enough to have come out the other side and actually be dealing with the underlying trauma. Reading was indeed one of the earliest ones.

Someone’s coping mechanism which is harming them/others should not be validated. It’s unhealthy.

Performance of masculinity is the unhealthy coping mechanism that counters the negative effects of being male under patriarchy.

Performance of femininity is the unhealthy coping mechanism that counters the negative effects of being female under patriarchy.

Femininity-performance has greater negative effects on women that masculinity-performance does on men, because women are under far greater strain by dint of occupying the position of oppressed whereas men get the psychological boost that comes with occupying the position of oppressor.

Women under exceptional patriarchal strain are presented with the possibility of retargeting their addiction behaviour and latching onto performative masculinity as a means to provide a more effective hit. It's explicitly presented as a healthy coping mechanism. Increasing the incidence and severity of patriarchal trauma increases the incidence of transmen.

We have masculinity because we have patriarchy because we have masculinity; ditto femininity. Two separate feedback loops, constantly reinforcing one another and themselves, and all constantly co-evolving.

The performance of socially constructed femininity keeps us addicted to patriarchy. The performance of socially constructed masculinity keeps us addicted to patriarchy. And I rather suspect this holds true regardless of the sex of the individual.

Note: when I say 'masculinity' and 'femininity' I am using them exclusively to refer to the social construct and categorically not the physical manifestation that is a sexed body.

That is brilliant. My ex behaved like an addict for sure. He didn't seem to be able to stop himself. I just knew there was no point in me asking him to stop pushing the envelope. It was an obsession.
He would go out dressed as a woman every few months but it turned into every other weekend. He started wearing eye make up to work even though he told me he didn't want to out himself as a cross dresser.
He then wanted to wear toe nail polish while wearing men's clothes and men's sandals. If I expressed discomfort he would tell me no one would notice. When people obviously did notice, he would insist that they didn't.
He then wanted to paint his fingernails all weekend when we didn't have the kids with us. Again, didn't care that he would be outing himself or that I was uncomfortable.

I'm very pushed for time

Just wanted to show appreciation for the dynamic thinking and thougtful reflection in this thread

There is so much here to consider - I probably agreee with some thoughts and disagree with others, but that is relatively unimportant. The main issue is that readers have the space to think creatively about the issues

Thank you mumsnet for facilitating this and thanks to all who contrinute to the thread. I am reading it and reflecting upon all of the posts

I wanted to add that I do believe my ex is AGP and that it is an addiction. However he didn't engage in dissociative hobbies that I can think of.
And he was odd in that he didn't care that he didn't pass. He knew as a six foot tall man with a fairly large frame that he would never pass.
He had people laugh at him while he was cross dressing and it really did not seem to bother him.
He just seemed to be on cloud 9 and nothing could bother him.
After he came out he did a half man, half woman thing. He really seemed to enjoy that a lot. To be honest, it made me sick seeing him like that. I think I would have preferred he just pick one.

But the part about changing the identity applies. One day he would say he is trans, then gender fluid, then gender nonconforming, then back to trans.

Very interesting. Just reading and digesting also.
Applying an addictions approach could open up new areas for researching alternative therapies? At least for certain patterns of dysphoria. For partners coping (surviving) as well.

I think it is important for the spouses to know that there is no stopping this. I have talked to hundreds of transwidows and I know of none whose ex(husband) was able to control himself or be honest about what steps he was going to take and when.
The only time I have heard of it was some one talking about a person they knew of in another group, where the husband agreed to go as slow as the wife could handle and kept his word.

I see new women coming in and believing that he is going to wait a year to get on hormones or he is never going to do it 24/7 or he isn't going to come out for 6 months. It's very difficult for them to stick to a time line. I really never see them able to control it. They just decide out of the blue to take hormones and some times don't even tell their wife.
I think seeing it as an addiction would help them to be prepared for the future and to manage their expectations and to be prepared for anything.

Now I'm wondering...this is unlikely to happen anytime soon and I doubt any AGP would be willing to do this but who knows. I have seen some on reddit who are not in relationships who want to try to mitigate it but I don't think any of the transwidow's husbands I know would do this

What if it was treated like any other addiction and they volunteered to go to rehab for a few months? And they wore scrubs or some thing that is neither male or female, didn't have access to make up or jewelry or wigs or high heels.
They would not be allowed to get online or to have any access to porn or any kind of sexual material.
Obviously if they did this as a group, they might end up using each other to get a high so maybe they would be in with people who are recovering from other non substance addictions like gambling.

I know for rapid onset gender dysphoria, removing the person from the trans cult people around them for a certain period of time gets them back and ends the dysphoria.

I am fairly certain my ex was looking at gay/trans porn and masturbating a lot and I think that was his main form of sexual expression. I was just this thing on the side he had to do to keep the marriage going and keep up the charade.

What if it was treated like any other addiction and they volunteered to go to rehab for a few months? And they wore scrubs or some thing that is neither male or female, didn't have access to make up or jewelry or wigs or high heels.

That would only be half of the answer.

They would need to be reprogrammed, to retarget the sexual urge that their feelings funnel into. Addiction treatment doesn't work unless you find an alternative that works.

And they would need support on the outside, after rehab. From a spouse, who's going to be completely fucked over sooner or later if retargeting the sexual urge hasn't been done. And I wouldn't advise any woman to hang around waiting for that to happen.

I think you are right. They might lose the desire to transition but they would still have the fetish. Fetishes are so hard to change.
Is your husband doing some kind of treatment to retarget?

I never married him. I would have done in an instant, if he'd believed in marriage. And then I would have broken in the same way that all the other transwidows break.

Instead I learned, from an awful lot of places. I found a way of managing it for everyone in our dynamic that stopped his descent. He's in a holding pattern on the edge of the nest at the moment. It won't last forever, and I've figured out what makes it worse, and what recovery really looks like.

I just can't explain it without everyone thinking I'm mad or bad!

What words would work here...?

Maladaptive daydreaming. Look it up, think about it, think about how you do it. Think about why you do it. Know that everyone else does it too, to a degree. There's a matrix of reasons some people do it too far and become the unmanageable other.

Link it to the detransitioners. The girls who've found their way back. The answer is there.

Oh my actual god!!! That's the last jigsaw piece right there

Dh hasn't CD for 7 months now. I appreciate that this doesn't prove anything but while he says he still has urges to do it he is finding he has them less often and they aren't as strong. It is being treated as an addiction but one he is using to deal with childhood trauma much like alcohol or drug addicts. While I 100% agree with tyro that any woman is foolish to stay with someone who has agp, I would say that no one should stay with a partner who has an addiction that's taking over their life. There are treatments but the vast majority fail. So my feeling is that agp may well be an addiction that is treatable but for our own sanity and to protect our DC we should break free or the 'be kind, be supportive' narrative and RUN.

Just picking this up again, since it's gone quiet.

any woman is foolish to stay with someone who has agp

I tried to, for years. The main reason it didn't work is because I was aware during sex, that my body was a prop for his fantasy.

Whether he thought I was imposing my own fantasy onto his body or not is something I'm still pondering.

Can't speak for anyone else, but my pet AGP also gets off on believing he's elevating and worshipping the woman he's sleeping with (back to the beta-male daddy issues again).

He set the tone though. I had no control over the direction in which his need to believe this was expressed. For me to feel like a powerful goddess or whatever the hell he thought was happening, I'd have to actually be in control of our liaisons. And I wasn't, because they were only ever on his terms.

Trying to continue a sex life with this going on was impossible. It had a gradually worsening effect on my mental and physical health.

So I'd say there's no point staying with someone who's expecting you to engage in sex on their terms and their terms only. This is true across the board, but much more obvious and painful when AGP is happening in the male partner.

He did try to encourage me into autoandrophilic sexuality, because this would have fitted in nicely with his autogynaephilia. Needless to say, this didn't work - because I have no desire to dominate or be dominated during sex.

I would say that no one should stay with a partner who has an addiction that's taking over their life.

Agreed most wholeheartedly!

Tyro I can't believe how similar your description of your sex life with your pet AGP is to my experience with mine. It's like they are the same person

Toomanytears

In terms of addiction, there are people who overcome addictions, and do well with it, so I would not say it's without hope. It also may be that when a husband is able to control or even extinguish the problem sexual behaviours, you just don't hear much from those people in most cases, they don't end up in therapy or support groups as often.
I read something, a few years ago now, and I really can't remember what it was or whether it was from a reasonable source, but it struck me as true. It suggested that the ability to gain self-insight or understand your own psychological processes was a significant factor in people being able to overcome gender incongruence and related issues. I think that makes a lot of sense - if you can see what you are doing, it's a lot harder to create a story or mythology around who you really are.

Really interesting twitter thread by a transexual in how their condition progresses
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1176805852159848448.html

I'm curious about Ibogaine as a potential treatment.

Some CD/TV people would just bag their clothes up and put them away, others would toss their entire collection in the trash.

Amateurs!

Mine used to go to the trouble of actually moving house, and not bothering to take them with him.

I've not heard of Ibogaine, Inebriati. Off down the google rabbit-hole I go...

Wiki says "It is a psychedelic with dissociative properties" - spaces you out, then? Seems an odd suggestion for what is essentially a form of sexual-behaviour dissociation. Used as a sort of 'methadone' to wean people off opioids, from what I'm reading.

My gut feeling is that it'd be a temporary measure that might buy space for proper therapeutic work. Your actual reconditioning might be better achieved with different drugs mdma though.